And now what?

[labug]

Changing you is the goal of DB and it that's not a goal for you (I've read your thread and it sounds like it may be, but who knows) then you might get nothing from this site and the experience.

It's up to you and as I said, your goals. I read that your father said "If you can't change the situation, change you."

Good advice and that's at the heart of DBing because changing you changes the situation.

You were together for 15 years, things won't change over night. The best advice it to stop worrying about "when" and live today.

If you're sad, get out and do something that makes you happy.

What are you doing for you to GAL?

[labug]

"I have been working with someone to help get my wife back."What does that mean? It sounds sinister, although I'm sure it's not. Does this mean you have an IC?

"Though my eldest is aware and gets feedback from her classmates." What is she aware of? What did you and W tell her? What kind of feedback is she getting?

"I went home tonight. My wife has her AA meeting on Wednesdays" Apparently your W has a substance abuse problem, and you didn't share that in your initial posts. What other things are going on in you M?

You said your W was "tired of your anger" or something similar.
What's that about? Why were you angry? How was your anger expressed?

Your W's affair was in Nov '11? You said you know she had sex at least once and he didn't wear a condom. How do you know that?

What happened when you discovered the affair?

[KLB]

hello labug
Thanks for your response. Philosophically, I'm not sure I can agree that the goal of DB is to change yourself. Michele's Divorce books are about how to save a marriage. Everyone on this forum has the improvement or salvation of the their marriage as their goal.

Michele's recommended process of saving the marriage is for at least one member to work on how they behave and react within the marriage. That is where the self exploration and conscious and measured change comes into play.

I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but I do think it is important that we remember the goal is to save a marriage. That is a sacred and noble endeavor, I believe, and it's importance serves as motivation for the change we all must undertake.

Of course, I'm finding this process of change constantly challenged by the fallout of my behavior prior to my wife filing for a divorce. And the situation makes me tremendously sad. And the total emotional silence from my wife.

That said, I am busy GAL. Since leaving the house, I have gone out regularly with friends and on "dates". I put the quotes because they are social dates, with no sexual component. I've made quite a few new friends. Most of my friendship had been through my marriage, and surprisingly, most of them have turned their back on me. One even said, "Your divorce makes me very uncomfortable." I said, "Me, too."

But since my wife kicked me out, I've done tremendous soul searching and have been blessed with the presence of a new friend - a 94 year old counselor who found me in a coffee shop.
After years of going to IC and MC and getting nowhere, after talking to this man for 20 minutes, he told me exactly what my problem was. And offered to help me fix it.

This is the person I'm working with to get my wife back. Completely not sinister. Very much online with the DB approach.
Same school of cognitive therapy.

My D5 is aware of the divorce proceeding. At first she just understood that W and I were living in different places. We explained that we still love each other, but just don't want to live with each other. A vague concept of what divorce is, but we certainly don't believe in trying to explain the full scenario to our D. She was fine with it the way a 5 year old is fine with things they don't quite get. She has gradually pieced things together and every week I check to see if she has any questions.
I think her friends at school are saying things like my W and I don't love each other any more, we hate each other, and (on a positive)that she can get much more stuff because she'll live in two houses.

My wife is an alcoholic, but has been sober for 8 years (her AA "birthday" is in two weeks) My wife also suffered from pretty bad postpartum and had been taking Zoloft through the second pregnancy. Last year, oddly around the time of her affair, her doctor switched her Prozac, and she went absolutely crazy. Seriously, I was a day from having her committed. The Prozac had triggered my W bipolar self and she was all over the place emotionally and mentally. They changed her meds, but she has never been quite the same.

My Anger stems from a gross sense of of feeling inadequate in most things in my life. I have tremendous expectation of my self, and never feel I am good enough. This translate to defensive behavior. So I've been sharp and critical of everything in the world - not always in a direct way, often in a sarcastic, harsh joking way. This really bothered my W.
After I discovered my wife's affair the first time,I was thrown into a panic. Add to that my business has been falling apart. Add to that a little face cancer. Add to that being diagnosed with partial epilepsy and not being able to drive for 5 months in Southern California. I was a ball of failure with no control over my life. And it made me mean. Never physically mean. Just extremely defensive.

The first time I discovered my W affair, was when she cancelled our Anniversary to go be by herself. I flipped and did not conduct myself well. I checked her cell and texting records and saw a text to the OW at 10:30pm. It was the number of the father of our Ds friends, who had recently divorced his wife.

I approached my W about it and asked if I could see the texts. She flipped and told me she had erased them. She acted very indignant and told me he was helping her with figuring out things between us. Red flags of course were up for me and I approached the OM and he had erased all the texts too. But assured me that there was nothing going on between them. And that he certainly didn't want to get in the middle.
A sadness and tension existed between my wife and I since then. That was around May 6. I think she planned on leaving me right then.

Most recently, I saw the guy at Starbucks. I approached him and asked him to tell me what happened. At first he denied, but then he told me what happened. Right down to my W not telling him she has herpes and that they didn't use a condom and that he was pissed.

[labug]

Wow, your family has weathered a lot of storms in a short period of time.

hello labug
Thanks for your response. Philosophically, I'm not sure I can agree that the goal of DB is to change yourself. Michele's Divorce books are about how to save a marriage. Everyone on this forum has the improvement or salvation of the their marriage as their goal.

I won't get into MWD's philosophy either, I just know that after being at this for over a year the "put the oxygen mask on yourself first" is a helpful thing to remember.

And my statement most likely reflects the change in my thinking over the last year. I came here with the goal of saving my M but through DBing, an excellent IC, AlAnon and other activities saved myself.

These things have improved all areas of my life.

As far as our marriages go, the sad fact remains that once we get to this point, the odds are stacked against us.

Of course, I'm finding this process of change constantly challenged by the fallout of my behavior prior to my wife filing for a divorce. And the situation makes me tremendously sad. And the total emotional silence from my wife.

You're in good company but, change, you must.

Try to start over each day, don't get mired in the past. If that's where she is let her stay there, but you don't have to go there.

That said, I am busy GAL. Since leaving the house, I have gone out regularly with friends and on "dates". I put the quotes because they are social dates, with no sexual component. I've made quite a few new friends. Most of my friendship had been through my marriage, and surprisingly, most of them have turned their back on me. One even said, "Your divorce makes me very uncomfortable." I said, "Me, too."

Meeting new people is a good thing, most of our old "friends" aren't comfortable with the changes made during this journey.

But since my wife kicked me out, I've done tremendous soul searching and have been blessed with the presence of a new friend - a 94 year old counselor who found me in a coffee shop.
After years of going to IC and MC and getting nowhere, after talking to this man for 20 minutes, he told me exactly what my problem was. And offered to help me fix it.

I love these kinds of stories! When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

What did he tell you the problem was? Sorry if you said that before but I don't remember.

This is the person I'm working with to get my wife back. Completely not sinister. Very much online with the DB approach.
Same school of cognitive therapy.

I'm chuckling now because of they way it was written "I met a guy in a coffee shop and he's going to help me get my wife back." I was picturing sotto voce conversations, black SUVs and blankets thrown over heads...I've read too much James LeCarre.

My D5 is aware of the divorce proceeding. At first she just understood that W and I were living in different places. We explained that we still love each other, but just don't want to live with each other. A vague concept of what divorce is, but we certainly don't believe in trying to explain the full scenario to our D. She was fine with it the way a 5 year old is fine with things they don't quite get. She has gradually pieced things together and every week I check to see if she has any questions.
I think her friends at school are saying things like my W and I don't love each other any more, we hate each other, and (on a positive)that she can get much more stuff because she'll live in two houses.

(Sigh) This is the tough part, the kids and their understanding of things. I have no words of wisdom other than unconditional love.

My kids are much, much older and it has been hard on them.

My wife is an alcoholic, but has been sober for 8 years (her AA "birthday" is in two weeks) My wife also suffered from pretty bad postpartum and had been taking Zoloft through the second pregnancy. Last year, oddly around the time of her affair, her doctor switched her Prozac, and she went absolutely crazy. Seriously, I was a day from having her committed. The Prozac had triggered my W bipolar self and she was all over the place emotionally and mentally. They changed her meds, but she has never been quite the same.

Congratulations to your W. that's quite a milestone. I'm also happy to see that she got treatment for her PPD. That alone can be devastating. Just out of curiosity, did she also get counseling or just the meds?

Again, difficult things to live. It seems you were there supporting her through all this.

Do you attend AlAnon? It's a great resource that got me through some really difficult times, even though my H was no longer drinking.

I, like many S, thought that when he quit drinking everything would be peachy.

My Anger stems from a gross sense of of feeling inadequate in most things in my life. I have tremendous expectation of my self, and never feel I am good enough. This translate to defensive behavior. So I've been sharp and critical of everything in the world - not always in a direct way, often in a sarcastic, harsh joking way. This really bothered my W.
After I discovered my wife's affair the first time,I was thrown into a panic. Add to that my business has been falling apart. Add to that a little face cancer. Add to that being diagnosed with partial epilepsy and not being able to drive for 5 months in Southern California. I was a ball of failure with no control over my life. And it made me mean. Never physically mean. Just extremely defensive.

Welcome to my world. Not the same triggers but the same outcome.

I was a very sarcastic person. I thought I was hilarious. I might have been funny (that's up t interpretation) but I wasn't happy. A man (sort of like Coffee Shop Guy) talked in AlAnon one day about sarcasm and how he didn't want that in his life anymore because of what it was really conveying. I was blown away, and had to go home and read the exact definition of sarcasm. It was a powerful moment, my sharp, sarcastic "wit" was really just me bleeding on people all the time.

I've learned to think before opening my mouth...most of the time.

It seems you have a good handle on why you are where you are.

Fear.

What can you do about that?

Is Coffee Shop Guy helping you with that?

[KLB]

Yeah, this is has been a pretty tough year. I forgot to mention my best friend died as well. Drank himself to death. Believe me, I was half heart-broken and half really angry about it.

I look at this DB process as pursuing a goal of getting my wife back through the process of self transformation. I pray that I achieve my goal, but if I don't I will be better as a person than when I started. Which serves my family well, anyway.

The old man in the coffee shop is a story. I was sitting there researching divorce on my iPad. When he leaned over and said, "Getting a divorce, huh? Tell me about yourself."
I told him about my situation, my life, and a previous engagement that failed. My previous professional life was as an actor. He asked me about my training as an actor. I explained that when I would go on stage, I would come with a need that I would do anything to achieve.
He paused and said, "That's your G*d damn problem. You took that needing and no holds barred approach into your life and that f*cked everything up. This is the fact. You don't need anything. Nothing! I know you're going to be a smarta** and say you need food and water and air. But you don't. You prefer those things because you prefer to keep on living. Stop needing everything and just prefer to have things. That will change everything."

And he was right. Since I changed my perspective, so much of my life has been better. I'm not afraid of failing because I'm just pursuing thinks that I would like to have or experience. There isn't that panic that I will be miserable if I don't get it.

The only thing I'm struggling with is thinking this way about my marriage. That is the transitiion where I still stumble.

This need has lead to my feelings of inadequacy, which in turn lead to frustration and defensiveness, which lead to unkind treatment of those around me.

I haven't been to Alanon. My wife suggested it, but I just didn't prioritize it to make time. And I felt weird. I don't know why. Probably pride of some deluded sort.

I am very proud of my wife staying sober. She didn't use meds. She also suffers some depression so she has been on drugs an IC for that.

Yes - Wit. I thought I had that, too. I love language and am quick with a turn of phrase. But my tongue was a sword and not a feather. Instead of looking for the good in others, I saw their weaknesses and would slash away. It was always "all in good fun." But no matter how much people laughed, it made them scared of me - afraid I would do it again or turn my wit on them.

Add to that my belief that I was right about most everything, and would get frustrated that people didn't acknowledge my brilliance, and I was a pretty negative force.

Again my old friend helped me with the mantra I've mentioned before : Be curious, not critical. Just that phrase has changed my relationships with my friends, family and how I work with my Daughters.

Change is happening. The challenge is to keep the change happening. That's my personal focus now. I hope it will help me get what I want from my wife. I'm already enjoying much more joyful relationships with everyone else.

[KLB]

You fear question. As I need less and am feeling more confident, I'm having less fear. Fear isn't a real emotion. It is a response to outside stimuli that attacks our sense of safety. The more safe I feel with myself, the less fear I feel.

I'm actually not afraid of losing my wife. I just don't want to. My best emotion, love, is deeply felt for her. My fear of everything else in the world, became my priority, when I should have kept my wife as my priority. I thought Ineeded to succeed to keep my wife and make her happy. Every failure threatened that.

The sad thing is I had my wife, and there was no threat to that, except my screwed up beliefs that our happiness was dependant on something outside the two of us.

[AnotherStander]

hello labug
Thanks for your response. Philosophically, I'm not sure I can agree that the goal of DB is to change yourself. Michele's Divorce books are about how to save a marriage. Everyone on this forum has the improvement or salvation of the their marriage as their goal.

I was going to post a reply to this as I felt it's not quite correct, but then I kept reading and your next comment is much more on target in my opinion:

I look at this DB process as pursuing a goal of getting my wife back through the process of self transformation. I pray that I achieve my goal, but if I don't I will be better as a person than when I started. Which serves my family well, anyway.

Yes, that is exactly it! Many of us start DB'ing specifically to get our M back, but somewhere in the process we come to realize it's as much about changing ourselves into better people as it is about getting the M back. And once you reach that stage of understanding, you also realize that you are going to emerge better off whether the M is saved or not. And that is the TRUE goal

[labug]

You fear question. As I need less and am feeling more confident, I'm having less fear. Fear isn't a real emotion. It is a response to outside stimuli that attacks our sense of safety. The more safe I feel with myself, the less fear I feel.

I'm actually not afraid of losing my wife. I just don't want to. My best emotion, love, is deeply felt for her. My fear of everything else in the world, became my priority, when I should have kept my wife as my priority. I thought Ineeded to succeed to keep my wife and make her happy. Every failure threatened that.

The sad thing is I had my wife, and there was no threat to that, except my screwed up beliefs that our happiness was dependant on something outside the two of us.

So true.

Fear is an important response to threat. The trouble comes when we become so fear-based the the lizard brain takes over with even the smallest threat.

I've found that when I can recognize that happening, I can respond rather than react.

[KLB]

So funny you should say that, labug.
I once worked on the advertising for a fellow who was trying to launch a Life Coaching business. His primary tennet was that we react far too often in our lives. His catch phrase was, "Don't react. Respond."

That phrase has always stuck with me. Coupling it with the concept of my old friend, "Be curious, not critical" and we/I should be able to actually communicate with anyone we meet.

Perhaps we could offer Congress a free consultation with Michele and DB forum vets.

[KLB]

For the last three months, I've stayed at our house to spend time with the girls. My W gathers up her stuff and stays at a friend's house while I'm there. She is always in a rush to get away from me.

When I went to the house today to take the girls to church, my wife was already gone. Her Dad is staying, so the girls were watched. I went upstairs to our old bedroom and on the floor was a piece of paper. Just a torn off piece of paper.
My W has a little box where she writes down her dreams or prayers and puts them inside. It was one of those.

The paper said, "Jeff. Please let me grow old with him. Let him touch me and let us make passionate love. Let us get married."

The onion continues to be peeled. I have wondered why she filed for divorce so quickly. There was a week between me moving out and her filing.

I imagine - since that's all I can do - that she has been seeing him for quite a while. Sheesh!! Can this get any harder?

Hope, goes from a flicker to a smoking wick. GD!